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Bloomberg – “Providers of virtual private networks, or VPNs, are recording a surge in usage from Russia after the Kremlin cracked down on Facebook and other services as part of a broader effort to silence dissent and limit information about its invasion of Ukraine. “In the past week, we saw traffic to our website from …
Slate: “The Supreme Court will not overturn a century of pro-democracy precedent and two centuries of historical practice to give state legislatures unlimited power over elections—yet. That’s the upshot of the court’s orders on Monday in two huge redistricting cases out of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The court refused to block new congressional maps drawn …
Mashable: “Twitter just struck a blow against government censorship, even if the tech giant won’t come out and say so directly. On Tuesday morning, Alec Muffett, a cybersecurity professional with a long history of working with the Tor network, announced he’d brought skills to bear at Twitter. Specifically, Muffett wrote that he’d helped the company …
Open Culture: “After years of threats, Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces invaded Ukraine—culminating in the largest attack against one European state by another since the Second World War. What happens now?” Via YouTube you can watch a wide-ranging conversation hosted by The Atlantic, featuring Anne Applebaum (Pulitzer-prize winning historian), Tom Nichols (U.S. Naval War College professor), …
Freedom House Report – Freedom in the World 2022: “Global freedom faces a dire threat. Around the world, the enemies of liberal democracy—a form of self-government in which human rights are recognized and every individual is entitled to equal treatment under law—are accelerating their attacks. Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing …
Lawfare: “…As in various other situations in which Trump has flouted well-established laws and norms that typically constrain the president, his apparent brazen disregard of the PRA [Presidential Records Act] presents two sets of questions: First, what are available mechanisms for accountability against a president who violates these rules? And second, what future reforms would …
“For more than three years, EFF has been fighting for public access to court records in a patent case between Uniloc, one of the world’s most prolific patent trolls, and Apple, one of the world’s biggest tech companies. The district court has ruled three different times that the public has a strong presumption of access …
Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) – “Democratisation suffered more reversals in 2021, with the percentage of people living in a democracy falling to well below 50% and authoritarian regimes gaining ground. This year’s report finds that democracy experienced its biggest annual decline since 2010, when the global financial crash led to major setbacks. The index score …
ZDNet – Chris Freeland is a librarian and Director of the Internet Archive’s Open Libraries program: “The disturbing trend of school boards and lawmakers banning books from libraries and public schools is accelerating across the country. In response, Jason Perlow made a strong case last week for what he calls a “Freedom Archive,” a digital repository of …
Washington Post – “Trump’s shredding of paper in the White House was far more widespread and indiscriminate than previously known and — despite multiple admonishments — extended throughout his presidency. President Donald Trump tore up briefings and schedules, articles and letters, memos both sensitive and mundane. He ripped paper into quarters with two big, clean …
CRS Legal Sidebar, Legislative and Judicial Developments Affecting Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) Updated February 1, 2022: “The Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER)system is the U.S. Court’s web-based service that gives registered users electronic access to documents filed in the U.S. Courts via the online Case Management/Electronic Case Files system, known …
Washington Post: “When the National Archives and Records Administration handed over a trove of documents to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, some of the Trump White House records had been ripped up and then taped back together, according to three people familiar with the records. Former president Donald Trump was known …
